Erik Bengtsson
Universitetslektor
The Effect of a Massive Wage Push on Income Distribution and Employment. Evidence from the 1920 Eight-Hour Workday Reform in Sweden and Its Aftermath
Författare
Summary, in English
In 1920, the working day in Swedish industry and services was cut from 10 to 8 hours without wages being cut correspondingly. This change resulted in a dramatic wage push, with real wages increasing by about 50 percent in the years from 1919 to the deflation of 1921–22. This paper studies the consequences of this wage push for real wages, unemployment, profits and investments. Since agriculture was not affected by the reform, we compare industry and services with agriculture to separate the effects of the reform from other factors. Furthermore, we distinguish between traded and non-traded sectors. We show that real wage effects were significant but that firms in non-traded industries and services faced more inelastic labour demand and thus could conserve profitability to a higher degree. In traded industries, on the other hand, wages relative to profits increased dramatically, and employers responded by increasing capital intensity, leading to jobless growth in the 1920s but continued low profits. We discuss the implications for the literature on interwar wages and employment, the more general inequality literature and the literature on the ‘Swedish model’.
Avdelning/ar
- Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen
Publiceringsår
2016
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Lund Papers in Economic History. Education and the Labour Market
Issue
143
Fulltext
- Available as PDF - 506 kB
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Dokumenttyp
Working paper
Förlag
Department of Economic History, Lund University
Ämne
- Economic History
Nyckelord
- wages
- wage push
- unemployment
- working hours reform
- inequality
- wage shares
- interwar period
- Sweden
Status
Published